Night Shift
by AquaFontem
Summary: Molly hates the night shift. Like really hates it. (Post HLV)


Molly hates the night shift.

Like really hates it.

Sure, she loves her job, but it's so much better when she does it during normal waking hours, when the hall outside the morgue has its lights turned on and there are pathology students just down the hall.

She isn't afraid of the dark, she tells herself for the fifteenth time in an hour, although she does flinch when the heater squeaks in the maintenance room outside the door: the woes of being in the basement.

She makes herself a third cup of coffee, but it doesn't stop her eyes from drooping, merely leaving a bitter taste in her mouth that the water from the dispenser in the corner can't remove.

That makes noises too, she notes, as she watches the bubbles in the water ripple to the top of its container. She turns it off at the mains, and it falls silent.

It wouldn't be so bad if she weren't so bored; but it had been exceedingly quiet recently (she'd observed to Mike that it had in fact been 'dead', but he hadn't got the joke). Considering Moriarty's return, that was admittedly strange: but Molly tried not to fixate on it past noting that it meant a fall in the cases from Scotland Yard.

And the visits of a certain Consulting Detective.

She sighed, and opened a document on her computer that contained a medical paper she was working on, hoping it would distract her from how little she had to do.

Maybe she could stop thinking about him too… With his bloody tight shirts, and his blue-green eyes and pursed lips, and the motherfucking cheekbones that were sharper than her scalpels-

_Stop it Molly._

Her fingers lifted from the keyboard as she collected herself. She deleted the paragraph that she had just typed after realising that it was a detailed physical description of someone she really shouldn't be thinking about at all. 

She needed a hobby, she decided, something to take her mind off things.

She had had Tom, but that had ended, and now she was back doing the night shift. Getting scared by boilers and water dispensers and counting away the hours until she could go home and fall into bed, and pray that her dreams weren't plagued by him the same way that her waking hours were.

She let her head drop into her hands, blocking out the harsh lights of the lab, trying to stave away her burgeoning headache.

That was why she failed to notice straight away that all of the lights had gone out.

Molly shot up, reaching around blindly in the pitch-blackness.

Her computer had been turned off too, and cold fear gripped her when it occurred to her that the only way to do that would be to switch the mains off in the corridor.

Molly didn't consider herself to be a brave woman. She didn't like conflict, had never been very good at it: she didn't let other people fight her battles simply because she never got in any.

So she surprised even herself when she edged over to the exit of the morgue, grabbed a pen (she vaguely remembered Indiana Jones' dad killing someone with one in a film she saw as a child), and slipped into the hall.

_There's probably no one there. It's a circuitry problem. There might even be a power cut. _

Then she heard a thump at the end of the hall, and whatever the reason for the sudden power failure, it wasn't due to dodgy electrics.

With an arm stretched out to feel the wall beside her, she tiptoed silently towards the noise, even though every atom in her body was telling her to run and hide. If she could reach the light switch though, she knew that she might take the stranger by surprise, and be able to jab an elbow in a place that would earn her a few minutes to run up the stairs.

She humourlessly observed that this was the most graceful she had ever been, recalling the failed ballet lessons that she had taken as a child, which had ended promptly due to an over-eager pirouette and a broken wrist.

A rustle sounded, and it was so close to her that her pulse elevated even more. She was nearly at the switch, but she readied herself to fight to get there, clenching her first and locking her jaw.

Unfortunately, when she collided with something in front of her, she couldn't help the cry that escaped from her at the shock of it.

Definitely a human, she decided, as she pushed herself away only to direct a punch at the intruder's shoulder. This was followed by a punch to the stomach, which she unconsciously targeted, wincing as her knuckles connected with the hard abdominal muscles there.

Since she couldn't distinguish the gender of her opponent, she decided that a knee to the groin was too risky, so she settled for a punch to the side of the head, hoping that the person's thick hair didn't cushion the blow.

It was at this point that she received some response, and she felt two strong hands grip her upper arms in an attempt to restrain her. From the size of them, she thought it reasonable to conclude that she was fighting a man, at which point, her next move revealed itself to her.

Before she could act, she found herself crushed against the wall, but she didn't have time to consider why a hand behind her head had protected her from the full impact.

An arm pinned her shoulders against the surface, and she thrashed about in an effort to free herself. Her attacker's other arm appeared to grappling for something around her, but she didn't really care what it was in her predicament.

His body was pressed right against hers, and his coat was scratching her bare forearms as she pushed against his chest, her fingernails snagging on shirt buttons.

Luckily, she had relatively free use of her legs, and she began bringing her knee between his legs with all of the force that her small body could muster.

Then the lights flickered on, and Molly found herself face to face with the intruder: out-of-breath, disheveled and staring down at her with barely concealed astonishment.

'Where… did you learn… to fight like that?' Sherlock Holmes' beautiful eyes were fixed on hers, his chest rising as heavily as her own as he pinned her to the wall.

_Fuck. _

'I… took a course… in university.' She gasped out, slowly removing the knee that had been dangerously close to his… _Oh God. _'Why did you turn off all the lights?' The anger that she felt from getting the fright of her life just about outweighed her embarrassment.

'Pressed the wrong switch,' he murmured, totally recovered in comparison to her uneven breathing. 'If I'd known you could fight like that I wouldn't have got Mycroft's men to protect you.' Molly was very tempted to melt at that moment, but her annoyance again pervaded this impulse.

'Sherlock,' she hissed, 'I've been taking a different route home every day because I thought someone was following me,' he ignored the constriction in his chest when he considered her feeling threatened, refusing even to acknowledge the part of him that resented the fact that she hadn't shared her fears with him.

'Oh yes,' he said, 'they've asked me to tell you to stop doing that,' her cheeks burned, and she struggled against him. He held her firmly in place, although he couldn't explain why he needed her this close to him.

'What are you doing here, Sherlock?' She whispered, and he flinched as her breath hit his cheek.

'You've been avoiding me,' he replied after a while, with a gravelly voice that made her shiver.

'Wha… No… Not… avoid-' she sputtered, hating herself for it, hating his satisfied smirk as she incriminated herself.

Because she had been avoiding him, since she'd seen Moriarty on the television screen, and rushed home early to get her locks changed. He'd been to see her once since then, but she'd still been cross at him for the drugs, and getting shot, and not telling her that he had a fucking girlfriend until she saw a man on the Tube reading a newspaper with the woman's face plastered across it.

So now here she was, doing the night shift, and wishing that just once, he would let something go.

'Why are you avoiding me Molly?' He said, and she considered it a very real possibility that she would never be allowed to leave this wall if she didn't give him an answer.

'Because I needed time,' she said, and she didn't even need to look at him to know there was confusion etched on his face.

'Time? What _are_ you talking about?' His tone was even more confirmation that he wouldn't understand, so she sighed, and tried to extract herself from his grasp.

But she experienced jolts in several places when he released her only to keep her where she was by firmly gripping her hips. She looked up at him, and couldn't detect a flicker of awareness of the effect he was having on her in his face.

'I just needed… some time away from you… Sherlock.'

'Ridiculous,' he muttered, in the condescending tone of his that she hated. 'You don't want time away from me.'

'I don't know if you know this, Sherlock, but you're not the easiest person to deal with,' she said, but it was too weak to placate him, and she knew it. He ducked his neck so their faces were even closer, and she suppressed a whimper with great difficulty.

'You've never had a _problem_ with me before,' his voice impossibly deep, and she was now positively desperate for him, despite how much she didn't want to be. She hoped that she was passing this off as anger, but the darkness of his eyes suggested that she was failing miserably.

'Maybe I've run out of patience,' she said, but the hand that found its way into his curls gave her away. She pulled on his hair, punishing him for the fact that it was entirely his fault, how screwed she was.

'Doubtful,' he replied, and his hands tightened on her sides so that she couldn't help but moan. He shut his eyes, bringing her flush with him so that she could feel how affected he was. 'You're the most patient woman I know,' he murmured into her ear, and his stormy eyes told her that he meant every word.

He deserved a reward for that, she thought, so she pulled him down to her, and crashed her lips to his.

He groaned, returning the kiss like a man dying of hunger, his hands roaming up her back to pull the tie from her hair. He plunged his fingers into it, stepping ever closer and plundering her mouth with his tongue.

When they eventually separated, it was with great reluctance, and Sherlock cursed the human body's need to breathe for forcing him to part from her. For a very clever man, he had been an idiot for ignoring Molly Hooper for so long.

'Forgive me,' he said, although she didn't know what he was apologising for. Other people whom they knew would probably be able to think of thousands of instances where Molly deserved such contrition, but she forgave him too easily anyway: yet another derivative of her hopeless love for him.

'You should probably kiss me again,' she whispered, and the words had barely left her mouth before his was placed over it again. He picked her up, and she squealed against his lips, wrapping her legs around his waist without hesitation as he backed her against the wall.

They kissed with the same fervour as before, but she allowed her hands to wander this time, meandering down his neck and around his collar. She worked on the top buttons of his shirt, slipping her hands into the soft material to sweep over the top of his chest and rest on his shoulders.

He tore his lips away from hers, and his gaze was so intense that Molly was afraid she would burn under it.

'Your office. Now.' She smiled, and pressed a kiss to his lips as she disentangled herself from him and started towards the morgue.

She didn't make it far before he scooped her up again, maneouvering her beautifully so she was pressed against him with her ankles locked at his back.

He kicked the door open, spinning them around and walking backwards into the lab, cradling her so protectively that she had the strangest notion that she might cry.

He sat her on a flat surface, sliding her lab coat off her shoulders. She did the same to his Belstaff, and the sound of it hitting the floor was the most satisfying thing she had ever heard.

His hand moved up to cup her clothed breast, and she instantly pressed herself closer to him, eliciting a groan out of both of them. His thumb moved down the buttons at the centre of her blouse, and she watched his eyes follow it thoughtfully. She knew the meaning of every facial expression he made, and this was pure frustration, his creased brow and puckered lips making him look adorable. Molly fought the urge to giggle, wondering how he would react if he knew what she was thinking.

Then the hand on her breast tightened, and all thoughts left her. She looked up to find him staring directly into her eyes, his piercing gaze making her gasp with the want that coursed through her.

'I,' he said, undoing the single button that lay over the ribbon at the centre of her bra, 'am not,' his hands peeked into the shirt, gripping the material tightly. Before she could protest, he pulled the shirt apart, buttons popping off and flying in every possible direction. 'Adorable,' he finished, and if she hadn't been breathless before, she certainly was now. It wasn't always a good thing, but at that moment she was ridiculously pleased that Sherlock could read minds.

He looked very smug as he brushed her shirt down her arms, so she locked her legs around him, and ground her hips enough to make him moan. He didn't like losing control, but he could feel it surely slipping away with every move that Molly made.

He decided he didn't care when she pulled the back of his shirt from his trousers, her warm hands pressed against the skin above his arse, slipping dangerously close to his waistline.

Sherlock kissed her neck as she undid the buttons of his shirt, going tortuously slowly. That was hardly fair considering he had literally ripped hers open, but he was at her mercy, and she seemed to be making him pay for ruining her blouse.

He unclipped her bra, easing it off her, and flinging the garment behind him when she was free. He immediately ducked to swirl his tongue around one hardened nipple, satisfied only when it was fully peaked, before lavishing the same attention on the other one.

She brought him back up to her, and they devoured each other again. He was memorising the corners of her mouth, and the taste of her, adding the information to Molly's room in his mind palace, which was now bigger than all of the others.

He unbuttoned her trousers, hooking his fingers in her knickers and pulling both garments down simultaneously, his lips never leaving hers. She left the surface for a moment as he divested her of her remaining clothes, hissing when she was placed back down on the cold table, although it could have been the result of his fingers skimming along her inner thighs.

He brushed her core, and she moaned, glaring up at him through heavy-lidded eyes as he teased her. He chuckled lowly, slipping a single finger inside her, then another, his mouth following the flush down her neck and across her shoulders. Molly didn't know how often he'd wondered how far down her blushes went, nor did she register how his cock twitched when he found out.

His fingers were working beautifully against her, and if she had been capable she would have attributed it to his violin, and resolved only to sleep with musicians from now on. And if she was lucky, one musician in particular.

Then he ducked his head down, and she wouldn't be surprised if he could play a fucking harmonica too considering how talented he was at this. His mouth closed over her most sensitive area, and she tried very hard to be ashamed of the sobs he wracked from her.

Again and again, she would reach the edge, but he would bring her back, withdrawing until she was moaning for him again. When it became almost unbearable, he relented, and she came undone, throwing her head back as she rode out the waves running through her.

The haze cleared, and his lips were on hers again. She could taste herself on his tongue, and her hands flew to his belt without a single encouragement from her brain.

She brushed over the front of his trousers and he responded with a noise low in his throat, his forehead pressed against hers when she finally managed to undo his buckle. Her hand slipped into his boxers, and he growled when her fingers closed around him.

He scrabbled around in his pocket, pulling out a foil wrapper, which he placed on the table beside her. Then he unzipped his trousers, dropping them with his underwear so fast that her hands were in the same place when he was done.

'Sherlock…' she gasped, a teasing smile on her face as she circled the head with her thumb. 'Did you just take a condom out of your wallet?' He couldn't respond, which was wholly her fault, so he gripped her hips and pulled her against him so she could feel how ready he was.

'Molly,' he muttered, tearing the wrapper open and rolling the condom on. 'Shut up,' he said, but there was no harshness in his voice: only a desperation that she was proud to have put there. And maybe it was for this reason that she leaned in until her mouth was beside his ear, pulling on the hair at the nape of his neck enough to make him moan.

'Make me,' she whispered, and he would have chuckled if it weren't for the fact that he was thrusting into her, unable to control himself anymore.

It was messy, and frantic, but the sensation of him filling her was even better than Molly had imagined. It was strange really, that he was able to hit the perfect spots with every move of his hips, his lips sucking marks on her neck where she was most sensitive. He even found that spot under her thigh, his middle finger pressing down enough to send jolts to her core.

Sherlock was barely holding himself together, his awareness extending only to her: the woman who had captivated his thoughts for months, the only pathologist he would ever work with, and the only person he ever wanted to do _this_ with also.

He was a selfish man, but with her wrapped around him like this, chanting his name in his ear and producing beautiful sounds that only he could hear: maybe he would learn to give more of himself to the people he cared about if this was what it felt like.

The familiar tightening low in his chest brought him back to reality, and he was barely cognisant as he brought his thumb down to where they were joined to bring her to release.

Their lips met, and they kissing clumsily, swallowing each other's moans as they both neared climax. She burrowed her head in his neck when the sensations at her centre became too much, and he pressed kisses to her shoulder, his teeth scraping against her soft skin.

Then, Sherlock felt her clench around him, and he catalogued all of the places where her body locked: her inner walls, the legs around his waist, her fingers in his curls, her teeth biting into his collarbone.

She cried out his name, and the tension left his body with an explosion, as every nerve ending in his body detonated to form one word.

_Molly. _

It rolled off his tongue, and he might have said it once or a thousand times, because it was spinning in his head with such voracity.

She sobbed into his shoulder, and he pinned her to him until his vision cleared, until they'd both stopped shaking with the force of their orgasms.

Fatigue suddenly hit her, and her muscles relaxed around him, freeing him even though he wasn't freeing her.

'Sherlock,' she whispered, and he responded only to her voice, pulling out of her and pressing a kiss to her forehead with such affection that she needed even longer to recover.

He stepped back just enough to pull up the boxers and trousers that had been pooled around his ankles, his shoes a short distance away where he had carelessly flung them. She couldn't remember when he had taken them off, but as she looked around at the debris, she found it difficult to remember anything other than him inside her and his burning lips on her skin.

She eased herself off the counter and watched him walk to her office to dispose of the condom, the rippling back muscles shining in the artificial light; grazes across his shoulders that she hoped would heal and felt vaguely guilty for putting there. But she didn't feel guilty when he walked back and immediately scooped her in his arms, kissing her slowly and passionately, as if that small distance had been too much.

Sherlock noticed that she was beginning to get cold, so he fetched her underwear and trousers. If she was shocked by the gesture, she didn't show it, but he didn't miss the flush that covered her neck while he watched her dress.

'Sherlock,' she whispered, and he realised that he was now staring at an empty spot; she was now across the room, holding a scrap of material that didn't resemble clothing at all. 'What should I do about the shirt?'

_The shirt._

_Clearly unwearable, if the buttons on the floor are anything to go by. Only viable option is disposal. _

_Leaves issue regarding Molly's half-nakedness. She looks quite becoming with no clothes on, although she is quite becoming with clothes on too._

_Nice bra. Unexpected. Lace. Blue. Ribbon in the middle. Larger cup size than I originally deduced, and her breasts fit nicely in my hands. Slim waist, distance from belly button to abdomen requires further investigation. Skin is very soft, smells of cocoa butter and lavender: would be nice to bury head in when cases become frustrating- _

'Sherlock.' Her voice breaks through his thoughts, and he doesn't realise that she's the only one who's ever managed to interrupt one of his thought processes. 'My shirt.' She reminds him, and he scans the room for possibilities, far too distracted by the fact that she is shivering.

She is cold and he doesn't want her to be cold, because she is Molly, and she is always, always warm.

So he gives her his shirt instead.

'What are you doing?' Molly is stuttering, and she wishes she wasn't. But she's watching Sherlock Holmes concentrate on buttoning her shirt, which is in fact _his _shirt, after having sex with him at her place of work. So really, the stuttering is a reasonable response.

'I have my coat,' he says simply, his eyes still trained on the buttons. 'You have neither a shirt,' he added, as he poked the last button into its hole. 'Nor do you have a coat, since you spilt coffee on it yesterday when you were running to the Tube. You could have worn the orange pea coat that you bought on a whim in the summer of 2009, and have regretted owning ever since, but there was a pleasant forecast for the day and you decided to risk it. Bad idea considering the fact that it rained all day and-' Sherlock found that he couldn't finish his deduction due to a mouth pressed against his own, but he instinctively deepened the kiss, his fingers skimming over the soft fabric that he had covered her in.

'Sorry,' she whispered against his lips when they broke for air, 'it was the only thing I could think of to shut you up.'

'I prefer your way to John's,' he murmured, 'he usually throws things at my head.' She laughed, but the mention of John had brought her back to reality, back to the world where the extent of Sherlock Holmes' kindness towards her was a kiss on the cheek.

Molly pulled away and walked to the doors, not even daring to acknowledge the way Sherlock's face fell slightly as she distanced herself from him.

'I'll just get you a scrub top from the cupboard so you're not…' She swallowed. 'Totally shirtless.' _Oh Christ. Walk away, Molly._ 'And I'll get the shirt back to you when I've washed it, I can send it to the dry-cleaners because they probably have better quality fabric softener.' She was talking about _fabric softener_.

_Walk the fuck away. _

'Molly.' She shuddered, he noticed. 'I don't know what you were thinking, but I don't want this to happen only once,' her eyes had been wandering desperately around the room, but they immediately snapped back to him. He took a step towards her, then another, and kept advancing as he spoke. 'I was actually rather hoping that you would come home with me, and that would save you having to,' his eyebrow flickered almost imperceptibly higher, 'dry-clean the shirt.' He stopped inches away, and she couldn't help the way that she drew to him, until his lips were almost on hers. 'Although, I wouldn't have minded if you'd used your regular fabric softener, because then my shirt would have smelt of you.'

She didn't know who kissed whom first, the idea that it had probably been Sherlock making her weak at the knees.

But it really didn't matter who started it, because the important thing was that neither of them wanted to end it, kissing as if it was simultaneously the first and last time, wrapped up in each other in a way that Sherlock had never been with another human before.

Molly Hooper had always hated the night shift.

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

**Thank you for reading! I hope this wasn't too long; I did get rather carried away, didn't I? None of this belongs to me, and the reference to Indiana Jones comes from 'The Last Crusade', if you were wondering. Anyway, whoever you are, you're golden, and I hope you leave a review telling me what you thought! :) **


End file.
